STDs and Men’s Sexual Health: 2/12

The STD Project and The Good Life are sparking a conversation on male sexual health in the 21st century.

The STD Project and The Good Life on The Good Men Project want to hear your stories about taking charge of your sexual health. Here are some examples of stories you might tell for this upcoming section on The Good Life on STDs and Men’s Sexual Health:

Tell us about a conversation you’ve had with a potential sex partner about safer sex practices in which one or both of you changed your minds about what you need to do to stay safe.

Describe a typical—or not so typical—experience getting tested for a sexually transmitted infection. What led you to get tested? How did getting tested change your approach to STD prevention?

What is necessary to men’s sexual health? How did you learn about it? What do you do to maintain your own reproductive health?

Have you ever contracted an STD? Were you able to treat it? Is it a chronic condition? How do you tell people about it? What kinds of reactions have you gotten? How does it affect your self-image, and your overall and sexual health?

Have you ever had a lover with an STD, or who contracted an STD? What happened? How did it affect how you saw your lover? How did you protect yourself from contracting the illness? How did this affect your sex life?

What has changed in the world of STDs and STD prevention since you became sexually active?

How have you talked about STDs with your children?

What do sexually active people need to know about STDs prevention?

Send your completed submissions on the subject of STDs to Justin Cascio by email at [email protected] The deadline for this call is Tuesday, February 12. Submissions must be on the theme of men and/or masculinity, and on the subject of STDs. Essays and articles may be of any length; 500-2,000 words is typical. All submissions to The Good Life may be reprinted; submissions to this call on STDs may appear on The STD Project. If you have any questions, feel free to email Justin.

"The Good Life" is asking men of the 21st century, What does your "good life" look like? Weekly themes, new content daily. Follow us here on The Good Men Project, on Twitter @GMPGoodLife, and Facebook.

As I understand it, people in public health today coming out of med school often prefer the acronym “STI” (Sexually Transmitted Infection) to “STD” (Sexually Transmitted Disease). I’m not sure why. I think ‘Infection” is less value-laden and may be a little more medically precise. I’m old enough that I still remember when it was called “VD.”

I’ve heard something similar. I don’t know why STI is more medical than STD, do you? An infection and a disease are not precisely the same thing. Some diseases are not caused by primary infection, or any at all, as far as we know. So I used all the language in this call, hoping to cover all bases. I forgot to call it “VD.” Now there’s a term to go with the vintage image.

More recently, the term STI has been used rather than STD (especially in the medical sector). The reason for this is that many people are infected but may not have had the infection show symptoms or turn into a disease. Being infected does not mean you feel sick or start to show signs of a disease.

However, you may still, in fact, be infected, contagious and carrying the potential of a disease.

Although all STDs are preceded by STIs, not all STIs result in the development of STDs.

It is important to remember it is not necessary to have a disease, or any symptoms at all, in order to be contagious. Many people who are infected with STIs that have not yet progressed to STDs have gone on to infect other people.

One must also remember that, technically, all of this is medical jargon.

It will take a lot of education to separate the two in the minds of the public. Most of the time, people don’t know they are infected with an STI until they start showing symptoms of disease. Yet, it is still pertinent they are tested frequently because of the risks of transmission noted above.

While the term STD has been around a long time (way back when, it was called venereal disease – named after Venus, the goddess of love), STI is becoming increasingly popular.

Some people think this newer term helps minimize stigma around these illnesses; it’s less harsh to talk about an infection as opposed to a disease. However, many people still don’t know what STI refers to.

At The STD Project, we use the term STD most often because people are more familiar with it. Some posts and pages also contain a lot of the term STI because we are trying to make sure the people searching for information about STIs are also able to find The STD Project.

Get with the 21st century and stop calling them STDs. STD = Standard Trunk Dialling. If people don’t know what STI refers to then it is our job to help them. If you keep referring to STDs then they will never know what an STI is. What a missed and misinformed opportunity.

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